World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade
The Burning Crusade is the first expansion for World of Warcraft. Burning Crusade-related content on wowwiki is denoted by the following template: Confirmed Information Increased level cap * Level cap will be increased to 70. * 10 more talent points. New Playable Races * Blood Elves, a faction of former High Elves that wield demonic magic, join the Horde in the expansion. Their capital will be Silvermoon. * Draenei, a faction of uncorrupted Eredar led by Velen, join the Alliance. Their capital city is Exodar. New Zones * Blood Elf starting zones in Quel'Thalas ** Eversong Forest ** Sunstrider Isle ** Ghostlands * Draenei starting zones in Kalimdor ** Azuremyst Isles * Outland - the entire new continent of Outland, reachable through the Dark Portal. ** Rob Pardo to GameSpot: "Outland will be about half the size of one of our existing continents." ** Hellfire Peninsula ** Bone Wastes ** Netherstorm ** Zangarmarsh ** Blade's Edge Mountains (CGW misprinted as Blaze Edge Mountains) ** Nagrand (first mentioned in GameSpot Q&A - Questions for the Lead Designer) ** Terokkar (first mentioned in GameSpot Q&A - Questions for the Lead Designer) New High-Level Dungeons * Many new high-level dungeons to explore in Azeroth, Outland, and elsewhere ** Karazhan in Deadwind Pass ** Caverns of Time in Tanaris, a natural labyrinth, with portals leading to different eras in Azeroth's past, protected by ancient Bronze Dragonflights. Opening each of these Portals will be World Events (Source: Febuary PC Gamer) *** Thrall's Escape from Durnholde Keep -- In this wing of the instance you must assist Thrall in escaping from Durnholde Keep where he has been captured by Aedelas Blackmoore. *** Opening of the Dark Portal -- In this wing you must protect Medivh as he opens the Dark Portal in the Black Morass *** The Battle of Mount Hyjal -- In this Epic Raid wing players must band together to defend the World tree. Battling out with the Demon Lord Archimonde and his Burning Legion Forces. *** The Battle of Hellfire Peninsula -- While still in planning stages this is said to be a PvP Battleground where Horde and Alliance battle it out on Draenor. ** Zul'Aman bordering Eversong Forest and Ghostlands ** Hellfire Citadel in Hellfire Peninsula ** Coilfang Reservoir in Zangarmarsh ** Auchindoun in Bone Wastes ** Tempest Keep in Netherstorm ** Black Citadel New Spells and Talents * New spells, not only to levels 60 and up, but starting from the 40s: ** "Currently we're not planning any new classes," says Jeff Kaplan. The company is focused to, "Develop existing classes post-40." In short, expect raid strategies to change - Kaplan says there will be "new gameplay mechanics for every class." Game Pro ** They will be rounding out the existing classes better, by adding 4 or 5 completely new spells for the 50-60 level range for each character class. BlizzCon 2005 ** Blizzard stated that Mages will be getting some form of invisibility back in the level 60 to level 70 spells. BlizzCon 2005 * The talent trees will be expanded. There will be a few more tiers in the talent trees, leading all the way up to 41 point talents. BlizzCon 2005 * They are looking to improve racial differentiation by carrying the concept they used in the Priest racial spells over to other classes. Source: BlizzCon 2005 Jewelcrafting Profession and Sockets * Jewelcrafting to make rings, trinkets, necklaces and gems to enchance Socketed items. ** Tigole on Sockets: The system will be fairly similar to that of Diablo II, along with some nuances that will make it unique to World of Warcraft. For example, we plan to introduce a new type of gem that grants bonuses that depend on the other types of gems your character is using. In addition, players will be able to overwrite gems, but at the cost of the gem they are replacing. New Hunter Pets * "Someone asked if there will be new tameable creatures in the Outlands, and they responded 'that's a good question... yes'." --BlizzCon Art Panel] Flying Mounts Introduced * New flying mounts which are only useable in Outland at level 70. ** While they couldn't add them to the main realms, as they'd break the game, that the Outland can be built from scratch can avoid that. ** Tom Chilton: "We'll put some high-level content in very hard to reach places - effectively places that you'll need a flying mount to reach. It's a dream for explorers, and you can draw lines to the Zelda-esque level construction where a new ability opens up aspects in a previously explored area." Portals to Other Worlds * From Page 2 of "World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade", Computer Gaming World, December, 2005 by Jeff Green: "Things will get even crazier once you open portals into other worlds—three these zones are already planned for the expansion, with seven total that Blizzard knows about." * Chris Metzen revealed in the Developer Panels that Illidan closed all the Dark Portals of Outland. Nevertheless, MagusRogue, a World of Warcraft RPG Game Designer from White-Wolf revealed the following: "The portals were shut down by Illidan, actually. However, some of the quests in the Burning Crusade Expansion have you re-opening these and going to new dimensions, fighting the legion in new worlds. Should be awesome." * "One of the things we're most excited about," says Metzen, "is the chance to create environments unlike anything you've seen in previous games. We really want to ramp it up for the players now. We're saying, 'Hey, you've graduate, you're over level 60 now, so let's get crazy with some really alien worlds and creatures." Even better, this is something that's infinitely expandable for us in updates and expansions down the line. There can always be more portal worlds." Much More * Many new and dangerous monsters. Burning Crusade Bestiary * New world bosses. * Hundreds of new quests. * Hundreds of new items. * And much, much more... Release Date * World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade FAQ says: :The target release date will be late 2006 in Europe, Korea, and North America (and those regions that play on North American realms), and we will work to ensure that the launches in mainland China and the regions of Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau take place as quickly as possible after that. * Blizzard (always) says: "When it's done." and Rob Pardo: "Sometime in 2006." * Tseric said: "In all honesty, we want the expansion to come out earlier than it likely will." * Caydiem said: "We haven't announced an official release date of any kind -- not to the playerbase, and not to retailers. When a product is set for release and they're offering pre-orders as many PC game stores are wont to do, they need a date of some kind up there. Often times, if there is no official date, they will estimate a date." Debunked! No New Classes (or Hero Classes) * Normal Classes: ** Tom Chilton: "The primary reason not to do it is so we can focus more on developing the character classes we already have. As we go from 60 to 70 we can add abilities, extend all the talent trees and work on the concept of heroes. Even though things are going to evolve, it's still very important for us to dedicate enough time to do heroes that feels really good and captures the spirit of the heroes in Warcraft III, and we don't short-change it by focusing too much on new character classes." ** "Currently we're not planning any new classes," says Kaplan. The company is focused to, "Develop existing classes post-40." In short, expect raid strategies to change--Kaplan says there will be "new gameplay mechanics for every class." Source: Game Pro ** Debunked Class: Spellbreaker – A blood elf unit from Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne. Blizz has stated that there will be no new classes in The Burning Crusade, nor do they intend to introduce any for the foreseeable future, because of the balancing headaches. Tyren: "I honestly don't know where the idea of a Spellbreaker came from, but I do want players to know that isn't going to be a feature of the expansion." (IGN) * Hero Classes: ** They are planning for hero classes in the future, but not for this expansion. ** Jeux Online: "Development continues on Hero system, and we're very excited about the Hero system. We hope to shed more light on them before they are released, but it's still a bit early to discuss them at this time." No Player Housing * Player Housing will not be coming in the Burning crusade, but it is still in the planning. Debunked Zones * Debunked by Shane Dabiri: The only new starting zones will be for the new races: ** Redesigned Echo Isles ** Redesigned Gnomeregan ** Undermine ** Northrend - Blizz has previously hinted that it will most likely be an entire expansion unto itself, and have officially confirmed that players will still be too low-level to fight Arthas at level 70, the new level cap in The Burning Crusade. See Also * Category:Burning Crusade Sources *See Blizzard's official Burning Crusade page with lots of information! *Movie of Blizzard's Burning Crusade presentation at E3 'Schwick's info compilation!' * Schwick's: Info About Expansion & 1.12/1.13/.. 'Game website articles' * GameAmp.com FAQ (Burning Crusade FAQ, updated often) * Gamespy E3 2006 * GameSpot 31st Mar 2006 (Interview with Jeff Kaplan) * CVG 12 Dec 2005 (Interview with Shane Dabiri) * IGN BlizzCon 2005 * GameSpot BlizzCon 2005 * GameSpy BlizzCon 2005 * GamePro BlizzCon 2005 'Magazine articles' * Computer Gaming World Dec 2005 ** Scans and text of above article: wowcentral.com. Category:Games Category:Coming Soon Category:Burning Crusade